


For the Captain Who Has Everything: A Prixin Story

by sunlitroses



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: 25 Days of Voyager, F/M, Festive Lunchtime Kidnapping, Fluff, Gift Giving, Humor, Idiots in Love, Minions Conspiring, Prixin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27984858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlitroses/pseuds/sunlitroses
Summary: Question: If you are three grateful crewmen trying to give your Captain the best Prixin gift ever, what can you possibly get her?Answer: The one thing you know she wants. (Hint: It’s tall, dark, ruggedly handsome, typically found within arm’s reach of the Captain, and extremely difficult to wrap.)
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 47
Kudos: 99
Collections: 25 Days of Voyager (2020 Version)





	For the Captain Who Has Everything: A Prixin Story

“This is your worst idea yet. And having heard your previous ideas, that’s saying something.” Harren scoffed dismissively, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms.

Seated on the metal step in front of him, Celes scowled back. “I haven’t heard any great ideas from you, either. And what’s so bad about mine? It’s the best one we’ve had yet.”

“It’s ludicrous,” was as far as he got before footsteps clanging on the metal walkway interrupted them.

“Sorry, sorry,” Billy huffed as he rushed in. “Some scans of the sector ahead came in and I couldn’t get away from the lab.”

“Anything interesting ahead?”

“More importantly, anything dangerous ahead? What?” Harren straightened in his seat at their twin looks. “You were both thinking it. I just said it.”

“Nothing dangerous,” Billy conceded, “but maybe something interesting. There’s a nebula cluster that might be worth a look. No idea if it’s in our path, but it livened up the map at least.”

Harren looked as though he were gearing up to say something dismissive about the field of stellar cartography, but before Celes could think of something to divert the conversation, he took a deep breath. They knew he was trying, sometimes reminding each other of that was the only thing that kept them trekking down to Deck 15 or to isolated corners of the mess hall. It helped, though, to actually see the result of the effort sometimes.

“You didn’t miss much. Neither of us have good ideas,” he gestured to Celes. Of course, sometimes even when he was trying, his efforts weren’t very successful.

“I do have an idea,” she protested. “A good one. Here, Billy, let me tell you,” she held up one finger in Harren’s direction without looking at him, “and you don’t get to interrupt. Let him make up his own mind.”

“Okay,” Billy agreed, eyes flicking between Celes, her finger, and whatever was going on with Harren’s expression.

“We’ve had zero ideas of what to do for the Captain for Prixin to thank her for everything she’s done for us over the past few months, right? All our ideas have been too boring, too personal, too formal, too weird,” she side-eyed Harren on the last one. Disproving Schlezholt was not her idea of a gift. “So why don’t we get her something we already know she wants?”

“Do… we know something that she wants?” Billy looked at her, then Harren. “Because that would have made this a whole lot easier.”

“No. We don’t.”

“Yes, we do,” Celes huffed and leaned forward. “The whole ship does. It’s as plain as my nose ridges and his ego, alien planets we’ve never even visited before know about it, the betting pool is reaching astronomical heights because of it.”

“Betting pool?” Billy’s eyes widened, and he slowly started to shake his head from left to right. “Oh no.”

“Yes.” Celes nodded decisively. “Commander Chakotay.”

* * *

Of course, they had told her it was a ridiculous idea. People can’t just give other people as thank you gifts. Particularly when the giftee and the gift were the gifters’ commanding officers. They had been very clear and firm on this point.

Which was why Billy was extremely confused as to how he had wound up back down on Deck 15 three days later reviewing a PADD full of possible ways to get the Captain and Commander together.

“Couldn’t we at least meet somewhere with more seats?” he grumbled, trying to find a bit of wall to lean against that didn’t have a rack, step, or uncomfortable curve.

“No one will disturb us down here. Besides, I think it’s cozy.”

“Cozy?” Harren looked up from where he had been frowning at the PADD on his desk.

“Like going camping,” she continued blithely. “Anyway, I think we have some possible ideas here. Anyone have a favorite?”

“I refuse to lock them in a turbolift together,” Harren stated flatly. “This is not a cheap netnovel written by an Ensign and passed around on the Fleet net.”

Billy and Celes both took a beat, then looked at him curiously.

“What do you know about netnovels?” Celes asked innocently.

“Everyone’s heard of them,” he blustered. “I’m not that out of it.”

“All right,” Billy drawled slowly. “So you don’t have opinions about ‘My Captor, My Lover: An Adventure in Romulan Space’?”

“I thought a few elements were a bit contrived,” Celes volunteered as Harren made an inarticulate noise and turned bright red. “Why did news about the Federation retaliation always show up just as they were about to finally kiss?”

“The point is not to start a comparison with nonsense that doesn’t even make political sense,” Harren recovered stiffly.

“So you have read it!”

“The point,” Harren stressed, ignoring Billy’s crow, “is that we aren’t writing a netnovel or a holodrama, this is reality. Stranding them in a turbolift won’t make them confess their love, it will make them wonder if the ship is under attack or if they need to order diagnostics. Then they’ll order an override or climb out of the escape hatch. It’s a terrible plan.”

“Okay, so what one did you like?”

“Look, if we’re doing this.” He closed his eyes for a moment, looking pained. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. Actually, I can believe that you’re doing this,” he gestured blindly around the room. “I can’t believe that I’m doing this.”

“We’re doing this,” Celes said, steely toned. “Just think how happy she’ll be when they can have more than flirting at Neelix’s parties.”

“I’ve heard they flirt on the bridge, too,” Billy confided.

“They would never,” Celes objected, shocked.

“I’m sure it’s subtle. I think. And have you seen how close they stand? When they come to stellar cartography, they just share a monitor.”

“Well, that’s just economical. If they’re reviewing the same data, why wouldn’t they?” Harren sniffed

“No, he’s right. They would do it when they visited Astrometrics, too. Even when they were looking at the main display they’d stand almost overlapped,” Celes tried to demonstrate with her hands, but mainly just looked like she was hiding her face behind them.

“They don’t really come down to Deck 15,” Harren shrugged awkwardly, when they turned to him expectantly.

“But you’re only down here part-time now, splitting the shifts.” Billy frowned, concerned. “You’re still working in Main Engineering most of the time, aren’t you?”

“Well, they must not visit there either. Or maybe I spend my time on duty actually working. Do you see them where you’re at now?” he awkwardly deflected back to Celes. “Where are you anyway? I can’t keep track.”

“I’m on a rotation in Sick Bay,” she grinned at Billy. “No coming by for the next two weeks or you might face me on the other side of the tricorder.”

“I’m sure you’d do great,” he said loyally, “but I haven’t been to Sick Bay in three weeks now.”

“That’s a new record,” Harren noted. “Good.” He stopped nodding and started to look abashed at the confused looks they sent him. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Celes confirmed quickly before he could get embarrassed. “And a new record. The Doctor will be proud.”

“Yeah, thanks. But this doesn’t really solve our issue. What plan are we going with?”

“Right. If we’re doing this,” Harren took a breath, but continued, “then we can’t just throw out a plan at random. We need data.”

“What kind of data?” Celes glanced at Billy warily. Even now the idea of data interpretation made her skin crawl.

“We don’t know all of the variables. When you’re trying to resolve an equation, you have to know what the problem is first. Otherwise your theories as to a solution might not even address the real issue. Then, before you even know it, Wang’s third principle has popped back to life and you’re back at square one.” Celes turned to Billy for interpretation, only to find him turning to her for the same reason. Harren made an aggrieved noise. “Look,” he tried again, slowly, “Before we can come up with a plan to get them together, we need to know why they aren’t already together. Do they know that they like each other? If they do, why haven’t the acted on it? We have to know what variable to plug in to get to the solution that we want.”

“That makes sense,” Celes said, with considerable surprise.

“But how do we find that out?” Billy shuffled around on the deck again, contorting himself practically under a shelf. “It’s not like we can just poll them. ‘Pardon me, Captain. Could you fill out this survey? Check here if you like the Commander, then provide a detailed explanation about why you haven’t started dating already.’ I think they might get a little suspicious.”

Celes rolled her eyes. “Very helpful. Okay, so it’s pretty obvious that they like each other, and that they know it.”

“Is it?” Harren held his hands up in placation as her narrowed gaze swung to him. “Fine. I believe you. You seem to have spent enough time observing them, anyway. So, why haven’t they started dating?”

Silence filled the tiny room.

Harren broke it at last, snagging the padd off his desk again and keying up a new file. “This may take some additional research.”

* * *

“Okay,” Billy had abandoned his attempts at the floor and was now perched on a space he had cleared among the shelving under the dubious eyes of both Celes and Harren. “So we’re definitely sure that they like each other after this week.”

Twin nods echoed his pronouncement.

“No one could withstand that much flirting without catching a clue. Also,” Celes leaned forward, voice lowering and eyes wide, “the Commander was injured when the subspace eddies hit and the Captain was down in Sick Bay, holding. his. hand.” Harren frowned, which was his general default reaction, but Billy offered her a thumbs up. That was the best concrete evidence they’d found so far.

“He’s back on duty, right?” Harren asked. “It wasn’t severe?”

“He was back on the next day,” Celes confirmed. “He was in the Jeffries Tubes when we hit and fell off a ladder.” They winced in unison.

“Good. This would be even harder to arrange if he was laid up in Sick Bay.”

“Also good that the Commander’s okay,” Billy added, pointedly. “Hey, how did you do? Do you think Sick Bay will be the place for you?”

Celes tilted her head thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. The Doctor said that I was helpful, but I don’t know how I feel about medic training. I think it’ll go on my list, though. It’s definitely better than Astrometrics. I have a while before I have to decide, anyway. When the Captain set up the rotations she said I had to rotate through all of the departments and give each of them the full length of time before she’d let me commit to one.”

“Sensible,” Harren nodded once as though that settled the matter. “So, what is keeping the two of them apart.”

“And I guess we’ll talk about your other rotations later,” Billy murmured, before turning back to the essential topic at hand. “Well it can’t be regulations, I looked those up and there’s nothing against senior officers dating. There’s a bunch of stuff about making sure there’s no coercion, but given that they both light up like the nacelles when they’re within ten meters of each other, I’m pretty sure those aren’t relevant.”

“Right,” Celes nodded vehemently, “the whole crew can verify that they’re both mutually interested, if we have to.”

“So, if it’s not ignorance or regulations, what’s left?”

“Time?” Billy hazarded. “They’re always busy. Maybe they just haven’t gotten around to it.”

Celes frowned, but then tilted her head to the side in consideration.

“I feel like that can’t be all of it,” she said slowly. “If they just needed time, can you see the Captain not making a set appointment and then glaring down any alien that tried to interfere?”

“Unless it’s Voyager getting in the way,” Harren objected. “I can’t see either of them putting anything before the ship.”

“And you said you never got to observe them,” Billy teased. “Clearly you’ve had more time in Engineering than you think.”

Harren rolled his eyes. “I’m not blind, and even down on Deck 15 I’ve heard the stories. All of Deck 1 has some sort of death wish, if you ask me.”

“We didn’t,” Celes said, “besides they’re keeping the ship safe. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you Crewman Rogue Escape Pod?”

“I had been under severe mental distress.” Billy and Celes watched in interest as he turned a mottled red, and cleared his throat roughly. “So they can’t get time together because of Voyager. I don’t see how we can fix that.”

“Their schedules are in the ship’s calendars. We could make a clear spot for them every day of Prixin. No, wait, even better, put in an appointment, but when they show up, we could have it set up for a date. Five days of that,” Billy dusted his hands off, “and they definitely couldn’t say that they didn’t have the time to discuss it.”

“I like it,” Celes confirmed, with a glance at Harren, who cautiously nodded, “but I still think it can’t be all a timing thing.”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“Well,” she drew her knees to her chest, “it’s just a thought. But. Everyone says they flirt on the bridge, but they don’t flirt much outside of it? I mean, they kind of do at parties and stuff, but mostly not. And they always address each other as Captain and Commander. All the time on duty and off duty, too. It’d be like me calling you both crewman all the time.”

“Would that be so bad? What,” Harren shrugged, “it’s efficient. Plus, there’s only one of each of their ranks, so there’s not even any confusion.”

“It clearly means something to the Captain,” Billy pointed out. “On our away mission, she called us all by our first names. Gave me a turn the first time she called me ‘William.’ Thought I was in trouble for sure. My Aunt used to say it just the same way when I was trying to tell her all the hazards involved in ‘going out to play.’”

“My point is,” Celes put in, “that maybe they don’t think we’d approve of them being together. The whole crew, that is, not just us. Or they don’t know how we’d react, or something.”

“Do you really think the Captain cares what we think of her personal life?”

“No, that makes sense,” Harren said, then continued under twin looks of astonishment. “She felt personally responsible even for having three misfits onboard. She’d probably hold herself just as much to account for everyone’s opinions on something that’s none of their business. Especially with the ridiculous way people gossip on this ship.”

“It’s not just a ship, it’s a community,” Celes stressed, “People want to know how others are doing. In case they need help or something.”

Billy raised an eyebrow. “Even I don’t buy that one, Celes. I mean, sure, that’s part of it, but it’s also a small ship and we’re all either bored or nosy. Or both. But whatever the case,” he hurried his sentence along at her pursed lips, “we can fix the time thing, but how do we make them see we’re okay with them, or whatever they want to be?”

“Send them a copy of the betting pool?” Harren suggested, with a poorly concealed smirk.

“Efficient,” Billy grinned back, “but either Lieutenant Paris or Ensign Kim would kill us, depending on who figured it out first.”

“Oh, do you think they’re the ones running it? My bet’s on Ensign Wildman.i But of course, we can’t do that. Knowing everyone’s betting on your relationship? That would make things even worse.”

“Should we get up a petition? Sign here if you think having the Captain and Commander get together will have a positive influence on crew morale. Or at least give us a break from wondering if today’s the day they break in the middle of our latest death-defying stunt and just kiss already.”

“Billy,” Celes protested as best she could through her laughter, “we can’t petition the Captain to start a relationship. We just need to somehow let them know we’re okay with it. In case that’s what’s holding them back.”

“How about a poll? No, I’m serious,” Harren held up his hands in protest. “We could send out a poll to gather data on how the crew feels about relationships on board. Then we get the responses to them somehow. They can’t argue with data.”

Silence hung in the room for a full fifteen minutes.

“Depending on how we worded it, that could work,” Billy broke the moment at last. “But how do we get them out without everyone knowing it’s us?”

“I can do that part,” Harren assured him. “There’s ways around that in the system.”

“I can think of a few questions that would get us the information that we need, without being obvious,” Celes had stretched out full length of the deck plating as she contemplated the idea. “I’ll draft them up today. We’re running out of time, so we’ll need to get it out soon.”

“And I’ll collate the data as it comes in,” Billy contributed cheerfully. “Now we just need to figure out how to get the results to them.”

Silence threatened to fall once more, hanging grimly about the shadowed corners of the room.

“Do you remember those little infograms when we were kids,” Celes said before the quietude had slunk even halfway down the walls. “When you were reading on a padd, you know? Just this little box appearing that said, ‘Did you know,’ with a fun fact?”

“I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

* * *

“We meet again.”

Chakotay turned around from his contemplation of the fully-laid table just below the window at the voice behind him.

“Wait, don’t let the door,” was all that he had time for as the doors closed, “shut.”

Kathryn turned back around and surveyed the metal dispassionately. “Locked in again, huh?”

“We compared our schedules against each other’s this morning, checked that everyone knew we were confirmed for not-to-be-cancelled meetings all day, and warned our usual trio of trouble-makers personally at the senior briefing this morning.” Chakotay ran a hand over his face, caught between indignation and laughter. “How the hell are they doing this?”

Kathryn moved past him to look over the table. “At least we haven’t had to skip lunch for two days.” She reached down and popped a grape into her mouth. “Three, now.”

“How is this not bothering you?” he turned, surprised, to watch her take a seat and spread a napkin over her lap.

“Whoever’s doing this, and I suspect it’s a group, not one individual, is clearly not acting out of malice.” She gestured at the seat opposite herself and waited for him to reluctantly take it. “They’re rearranging our posted schedules so that everyone has notice and we aren’t missing meetings, I’m finding myself with precisely enough time throughout the day to make our lunches not interfere with ship’s business, the crew is greeting our periodic incarcerations with good cheer and amusement, and we’re being exceedingly well fed. If someone or someones on our crew want to give us a Prixin gift, this is a very thoughtful one. Who are we to argue?” Chakotay looked ready to object, and she swiftly amended, “Who are we to argue with a lunch that doesn’t include leola root? Neelix is saving all his energy for the nightly Prixin feasts. I believe today’s lunch special is boiled leola root in something that looks like tomato sauce, but is in fact largely composed of mashed leola root.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Chakotay laughed, and unfolded his own napkin.

“I’m a little more curious about the ‘feature’ that’s been popping up on my reports,” she confided, dishing out what smelled deliciously like corn stew to the both of them, as Chakotay divided the contents of the bread basket between their plates. “Have you seen it? It resembles those infograms that used to appear in my school padds, but they’re all related to crew statistics.”

“You, too?” Chakotay looked relieved as he picked up his spoon. “I asked B’Elanna about them and she looked at me like I had a second head. Worse, when I handed over one of the padds, I couldn’t get it to come up again. I think she was about five seconds from calling for the Doctor.”

Kathryn set her spoon back in her bowl until she could stop laughing. “I had the exact same conversation with Tuvok,” she managed. “Complete with the look and a request that I ‘perhaps consult with the Doctor about my daily caffeine intake.’”

“Low blow, there,” Chakotay smirked at his bowl. “Although, typically, I would point out that he has a point.”

“Good thing this isn’t ‘typical,’ then,” she told him blithely, “or I would commandeer all of the dessert for myself.” She dipped a piece of bread into the soup and smiled at him innocently.

“Speaking of low blows,” he laughed, and let the moment fade as they gave the meal the attention it deserved.

“What sort of statistics are you getting?” Chakotay asked after several minutes of happy munching. “I think my latest one was, ‘Did you know 95% of the crew support onboard relationships?’”

“I did see that one yesterday,” Kathryn frowned. “Today I had, ‘Did you know 99% of the crew do not correlate personal relationships with professional decisions?’ as well as, ‘Did you know less than 1% of the crew support postponing important life decisions until our successful return to the Alpha Quadrant?’”

“I haven’t seen that first one,” he pushed his empty bowl away and fiddled with his glass. “How about, ‘Did you know 98% of the crew believe that officers of lower ranks are equally able to approach officers of senior rank about personal matters that involve them, as the reverse?’”

Kathryn muttered that one to herself a few times. “That’s a bit convoluted,” she finally settled on. “No, I haven’t seen that one yet. What was your interpretation?”

“A crewman wanting to ask out an Ensign, perhaps?” His dimples deepened as he bit back a smile. “Harry’s been getting some looks in the Engineering department lately.”

“Old news,” Kathryn waved one hand. “Crewman Richardson approached him five days ago on Deck 8 and he let her down gently. The Delaney sisters got her roaring drunk off-shift and are trying to redirect her attention to Crewman Iftic who’s got a crush on her that’s visible from Earth.”

“One day,” he threatened, lowering his eyebrows to squint at her menacingly from across the table, “I will figure out how you always know all the gossip on this ship before me. Mark my words, Janeway.”

She gave him an unimpressed look of her own, which dissolved into laughter. “Very good. Keep that expression in mind the next time we have to threaten someone. They’ll be shaking in their boots.”

“Oh, it’s clearly very effective,” he tried to maintain an aggrieved expression and failed dismally. “Fine, what’s your theory on our daily factoids?”

“That if someone is trying to tell us something, they aren’t doing a very good job of it. Now that I know it’s the both of us, I’ll get Harry and Seven to see if they can track it in the system. I was meaning to anyway, but now they’ll have more reference points. Not a priority, of course, but they’ll appreciate the challenge. Actually,” she paused, and fiddled with her napkin, a half smile flitting across her face, “maybe I won’t tell them.”

“You don’t want to know?”

“No, I do. But they aren’t the only ones who appreciate a challenge,” the competitive grin he got across the table was pure Kathryn, and his heart gave a lurch. “A little stroll through the network might be very therapeutic.”

“Does the therapy come before or after you get to show a mutual pointy-eared friend of ours proof that you were right?” Chakotay gave her a conspiratorial grin of his own that squeezed the breath out of Kathyrn’s lungs for a moment.

“Shall I provide a copy of my findings to you for our mutual firebrand of an engineering genius?”

“Absolutely.”

* * *

“We have a problem.”

Chakotay looked up from where he was filling their water glasses from the waiting carafe. By Day Four of Festive Lunchtime Kidnappings, he was confident that she would be showing up not long after his arrival.

“With the ship? Should we figure out how to break out of here?” Even as he spoke, he turned to search the room for a Jeffries tube access.

“No, no,” the hand not carrying a padd waved the thought away. “Sorry. Ship’s fine. I meant ‘we,’ as in ‘you and me.’”

“Oh, well, in that case, lunch?” Gallantly, he pulled her chair away from the small table and waved her towards it with a small bow. She huffed a laugh, but allowed him to seat her, before taking his place opposite.

“So, what’s the problem?” he finally asked, fork poised indecisively between a steaming portion of eggplant parmigian and a colorful mass of Andorian five-leaf salad.

“Hm,” Kathryn hummed around her own mouthful of eggplant, and pushed the padd his way.

He eyed it, then took a bite of salad. Followed by some eggplant. Only when it seemed likely that Kathryn would possibly toss her water glass at him momentarily, did he relent and set down his fork to look at the screen.

“More of the crew statistics?”

“All of the crew statistics. While I was looking into the messages, I happened to stumble across one of the polling forms for the statistics that a corrupted packet had misdirected.”

Chakotay set the padd to the side in favor of his fork once more. “In other words, you went snooping through the messaging system last night when you couldn’t trace the origin of the infograms and – after barely sleeping – your incredibly rigorous and overly detailed search actually turned up a needle in the hay stack.”

“I slept,” she protested, before subsiding under the incredulous tilt of his eyebrow as he munched through more of his salad. “Some.”

“Uh huh. So where does the problem come in?”

“Reading through all of them together gives a very different impression than reading some of them piecemeal over days,” she gestured to the padd with her fork. “Try it.”

Eyeing his lunch mournfully, Chakotay picked up the padd once more and began reading the list of questions. He kept a poker face as he scrolled, but internally he moved from confusion to the dawning light of understanding, through a phase of incredulity followed by a brief surge of anger, before finally mellowing into a deep, low level of amusement. Wordlessly, he retook his fork and attacked his eggplant with renewed zeal. It was tiring, moving through whatever the equivalent of the five stages of grief was for the five stages of discovering your subordinates were trying to set you up with your Captain.

“Well?” said Captain demanded from across the table.

He took his time swallowing. “Well what?”

“What are we going to do about this?” Kathryn’s tone and gesture at the padd seemed to indicate that it carried data on par with command codes for the self-destruct sequence, rather than a list of questions that were at the very least probably well-intentioned. He hoped they were well-intentioned.

“Do we need to do anything? If you hadn’t dug that out, we probably never would have caught on, so there’s no need for us to take action unless their efforts become considerably more obvious. And you’ve made your opinions on the matter clear,” he shrugged and chased the last bit of toasty cheese around his plate.

“You could be right, we’ll just have to polish off our acting skills,” her voice trailed off, and he looked up to find a pair of blue eyes squinting at him suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘I’ve made my opinions on the matter clear?’”

Chakotay blinked. “That you aren’t interested in a relationship. With me. Or anyone, I mean, not while Voyager has to be our top priority.”

Kathryn blinked back at him. “You’re serious.”

“Isn’t that what,” he looked down at the padd again, panic gripping his stomach. “That’s what you got out of this list, isn’t it? That the crew, or at least whoever wrote these questions, want us to be in a relationship?”

“Chakotay.” At the look in her eyes, he had to stop himself from checking if there was room under the table to hide. “You’re my date to all ship events, we eat dinner together – alone, in my quarters, by candlelight – at least once a week, we’ve both finagled the shore leave schedules so often that Tuvok has given up on protocol and just schedules us on leave at the same time from the get-go, I loaned you my copy of Dante’s Inferno, you gave me a stone from your home for my medicine bundle when I asked for something that would represent you, we go on double dates with Tom and B’Elanna.” Her face grew redder as the list grew longer, and her gestures threatened to clear the table of plates, cutlery, and drinking glasses all together. Something deep in his chest, buried where he had chosen not to look for years, began to beat once more.

Kathryn got up from the table and paced away towards the door when she seemed to run out of words or, more likely, choke on too many that she wanted to say at the same time. “So I want you to tell me,” she found her voice again, turning back to where he still sat, stunned, at the table, “what exactly the hell you think we’ve been doing this whole time. I’ve been under the impression we were building a relationship. Not perfect, no, not with the whole damn crew watching us for leadership and strength. And, apparently,” she crossed the room in three quick strides to grab the padd and wave it in his face, “for entertainment. But a relationship, nonetheless. Of course, I didn’t realize that I was building it alone.”

The almost-crack in her voice at the last statement jarred him out of his shock and he rose to join her, quickly, before she could turn away or put the table back between them.

“Kathryn, I knew we were building a relationship.” The glare he got in return was patently unconvinced. “Truly. I think we just had different ideas of the type of relationship we’ve been building. Which explains a few things,” he added in a mutter. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I like to think I’ve been a pretty good friend to you as well. It’s a relationship that I’ve put time and effort into building, which you know damn well,” he gave her his own glare. Kathryn, contrary by nature as always, softened at it. “It’s a relationship that I can’t imagine living without. But I thought, I’ve always thought, that it was a platonic one. After New Earth…”

“New Earth,” she cut him off in a faint voice. “That was _four years_ ago. More than.”

“You said we couldn’t…”

“I said I needed _time_. And that I couldn’t, we couldn’t, compromise the command of this ship. Which I thought we’d been accomplishing rather nicely, for the most part. You seriously thought that some of the things I’ve told you were things I would tell just anyone?”

“Of course not, just as some details I’ve told you I wouldn’t tell anyone else. Because your friendship means a great deal to me, you mean a great deal to me, Kathryn.” It occurred to him that Kathryn was not the only one with cause to be angry here. “You couldn’t just once say something?”

“I thought we understood each other. These aren’t, I don’t, talking about these things,” she huffed in exasperation. Chakotay felt the weight of of two long, tragic engagements and loss in her tone. Instinctively, he stepped close and cupped a hand around her upper arm.

“I know,” he said quietly. “And you know that I do need to talk about these things.” She looked up, anger visibly melting away from her eyes as she registered the regret of things not said, that could never be said, not to those no longer alive to hear them.

“We’re quite a pair,” she sighed, rubbing a hand over her face, then snorted.

“What?”

“It’s just, I thought we were coming up on an anniversary, you thought I’d given you the brush off years ago, our crew seems to think we’re in the middle of the universe’s longest flirtation,” she broke off and started laughing in interest. Chakotay couldn’t stop the grin stretching across his own face, or the chuckle that followed.

As their laughter wound down, he dared to step even closer and move his hands to her waist. Rather than protesting, hers reached up to settle on his shoulders as she looked at him questioningly.

“There is no one I would rather be in this mess with than you, Kathryn. Friend, suitor, sounding board, comrade at arms, standing date, replicator guinea pig, what have you. The only thing I can’t possibly imagine being is without you. Okay?”

Eyes shimmering with tears she refused to shed, Kathryn only nodded.

“See, talking’s not all bad,” he grinned, expecting the hand on his shoulder that moved to bap him gently on the side of his head.

“I don’t,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Chakotay. I think by now you know that I don’t commit to anything lightly.” The shimmer in her eyes had given way to a familiar steely glint. She never backed down from a challenge, be it the Borg or her own emotional insecurities. If he didn’t love her for a million different reasons already, he could love her for that alone. “Or anyone. So.” She gave the same sharp nod she did when facing down a hostile alien or the latest disastrous spacial anomaly. The last lingering doubt slipped away from his heart. There were several laws of physics that had a stronger chance of breaking than anything Kathryn Janeway set herself at with that look in her eye.

“Well then,” he said, tugging lightly on her hips to draw her flush to his body, “I guess that means I can finally try this without risking time in the brig.” Slowly, giving her plenty of time to tell him exactly what she thought of his proposal, he lowered his lips to hers.

Several minutes later, surfacing to refill depleted lungs, Chakotay pressed a light kiss half to her hair and half to her forehead as he mumbled, “What are we going to do about that thing, anyway?”

“What thing?” Kathryn asked, flatteringly distracted.

“The survey. It,” he stopped for a moment. “You know, it actually worked.”

There was a beat, then she leaned forward to tap her forehead against his chest several times. “If anyone asks…”

“We’ve been together since shortly after New Earth and they have all been too unobservant to work it out,” he responded promptly. “They don’t need to know that ‘everyone’ included me, too.”

“Good enough,” she leaned back to make eye contact. “We have an anniversary coming up in a bit. Maybe this year you’ll finally be available for it. I’ll admit, I always wondered why you couldn’t clear your schedule.”

“What day is it? I’ll make sure it’s free, whatever the Delta Quadrant thinks otherwise.”

“Don’t tempt fate,” she pinched his shoulder blade, mostly so that he would lean away from her hand and further into her arms. “And I’m shocked you can’t figure it out. It was a very memorable beginning. There was moonlight on the water, champagne on ice. You gave me a rose.”

“Lake George?” his arms tightened around her. “The first time we went, on the night after,” he cleared his throat. “The night after one of the worst days of my life.”

She gave into the pressure of his arms and snuggled close, tucking her nose into his neck.

“Something worth living for,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he agreed, muffled where his face was pressed against the crown of her head. “It was indeed.”

They reluctantly parted, the time for a return to their duty shifts urging them on.

“We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do about this,” Chakotay reminded her, picking up the padd.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she smiled, slyly, lips twisting to the side. “I know exactly what they deserve.”

* * *

The final feast of Prixin the following night was the best Voyager ever had. It was talked about for years to come, whenever even a handful of the crew gathered. Neelix had outdone himself for the feasting, there wasn’t a being onboard who hadn’t gone overboard for Prixin gifts, the music was sprightly, spirits were light, and the Prixin punch was particularly potent.

Most memorable of all, however, was the entrance of the Captain and Commander. After somehow avoiding it all the years prior, this year was the one where they stepped into the party through the door someone had rigged with mistletoe. Under the playful jeering of their crew, Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager had looked up, mimed a good-natured shrug, and promptly kissed the life out of her First Officer to rousing applause.

* * *

i The answer to that most pressing question of who is running the betting pool is not Lieutenant Paris, Ensign Kim, Ensign Wildman, or Lieutenant Carey – the current front runners in the betting pool on who is running the betting pool. Winning the pool requires providing incontrovertible proof as to the identity of the bookee and has been running almost as long as the betting pool itself. No one has collected, although every couple of months someone takes a stab at setting up a trap in the network. To date, these attempts have yielded three instances of crew having to hide in the Jeffries tube while Lieutenant Torres attempts to hunt them down for a ‘chat’ about crashing her networks, the outing of four separate relationships – one of which was one crewman dating two other crewman simultaneously without their knowledge and resulted in another round of Jeffries tube hide-and-seek, and Naomi’s wish list for Prixin the year she turned three that was passed around the entire crew and made her a believer in the magic of Prixin for life.

Lieutenant Paris did attempt to start up a betting pool early on, but was entirely sidelined by what became the official Voyager betting pool before he could even collect on the first bets. One of his goals in life is to find out the real mastermind, shake their hand, and then out them to the entire crew so that Harry will stop prophesying dire hints about ‘when the Captain finds out,’ B’Elanna will stop trying to get ‘the inside scoop,’ and the Captain will stop giving him that look of polite disbelief when he protests his innocence after another of her carefully worded lectures on ‘privacy, appropriateness, and going too far.’ As of yet, he has been unsuccessful in his quest.

The real answer is, of course, Lieutenant Tuvok.


End file.
